I'm looking into the best way to develop games specfically for Linux. I know I could build my own game development tools with C++ and OpenGL but I don't have nearly the expertise (or the patience!) for that!

I have Panda3D installed on my system and I love it, but it's not exactly the best game development tool, plus Python isn't exactly the best option for game programming. I was wondering if anyone knew of any good libraries or tools to make any type of game on Linux. I'm especially interested in 3D development, as there's not a whole lot out there for Ubuntu at the moment!

If anyone has any experience with this at all, I would greatly appreciate and information and advice you could give me!

What don't you like about Panda3d? The engine itself is C or C++, and you can use it with the C bindings if you prefer.

And frankly, Python is perfect for highlevel game development.

Exactly what do you want your tools to do for you?

I just don't like how you have to manually compile everything (unless you use PyPE, which I don't have installed just yet), and the fact that there aren't many tutorials to learn how to use it properly. I do want to use it though, especially if I plan on multi-platform development. I was just looking for other options.

The kind of tools I'm looking for are an IDE and library. So far, though, P3D looks like the best bet for simplicity.

Compile wasn't the right word, sorry. I just meant that I don't like having to use the "python <filename>.py" command in the Terminal. I know there are some IDEs (PyPE and Stani's) that allow you to execute the file natively from the editor so I've been using those as of late.

Well, after a few days of searching it looks like Panda3D is my best bet! Can anyone tell me how to use packpanda on Linux? The online manual isn't that descriptive and it's geared more towards Windows...

Can anyone tell me how to use packpanda on Linux? The online manual isn't that descriptive and it's geared more towards Windows...

Packpanda is the old deployment tool. There are new tools (packp3d, pdeploy, ...), which replace the old one and are currently supported. They're deeply described in the section III of Panda's manual. Maybe, in the past Panda was more Windows-focused, now that's not true anymore.

If you want to take game programming seriously, learn to use Bash. It's an excellent prototyping tool. As you learn the shell, you will learn to use tools like make and cvs and a decent text editor like Emacs or vi. There is no IDE in the world that can remotely approach the power and scope of Emacs. If you choose to write your games with C, C++, Java, Python, Adobe Flex, etc., then your options get even more interesting as you then have access to some of the most powerful compilers and debuggers on any platform.

These are time-tested, industrial strength, virtually bug-free tools that have been used to develop some of the most sophisticated software on the planet. Use them. That's what they are there for. You have no idea how fortunate you are to have access to these kinds of tools and the hardware to run them on. 20 years ago, a commercial license for UNIX with all these development tools would have cost thousands and the hardware millions.

One more note: Start with something simple. Don't start with 3D. If the game is fun, nobody cares about the graphics.